


Exile: Prologue

by Dragonkeeper14



Category: Myst Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonkeeper14/pseuds/Dragonkeeper14
Summary: In which we see what came before our hero's next adventure…
Kudos: 3





	Exile: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was suggested by Rowan Charles Ex (RowanSkie); to whom, therefore, it is dedicated.

After I got home, it was a long time before I opened the Myst book again. Even after that, it was a little while before I dared look at the Gateway Image, let alone touch it. Mostly I just busied myself getting used to living at home again, going to work, paying bills and taxes, and spending time with my family. As I said before, I told them almost nothing about my adventures; just dropped hints that I'd been somewhere and seen strange machines and made interesting new friends, and still had them on the brain. I did show my family the pictures I'd taken, though. They asked questions, of course, but I always answered without revealing anything they wouldn't believe.

One day, though, I cleared my schedule, shut myself in the spare room, and laid the Book open. There was the Gateway Image, just as it looked before. I hesitated a few minutes; then touched the image. Everything went dark, and I felt the familiar sensation of a Link.

When I opened my eyes again, I was right where I'd started: on the dock, on Myst Island. It was just as I remembered, too: almost unnaturally silent, except for the lapping of water and the cry of an occasional sea-bird. Everything was just as I'd last seen it. No new secrets in the Marker Switch on the dock; no new notes on the lawn; and, I was surprised and disappointed to find, no new message in the Dimensional Imager. Atrus and Catherine might as well not have been back, since they blew up Sirrus and Achenar's Trap Books. Next stop: Planetarium.

I stayed in the Planetarium a few hours, or so it felt, looking at the different constellations. Some looked familiar; most didn't. I'd seen them all before, in my stay before Atrus sent me to Riven; but it was nice to see them again. I found myself wondering, for the umpteenth time, if they were all in the same sky, or from all the Ages? I prefer to believe the latter. Next stop: cabin.

The cabin was just as I remembered it. Home away from home. So were Atrus' rooms, and Ti'ana's, and even Sirrus and Achenar's; except this time, a few more pieces of tools and furniture, clothes and instruments were missing. Evidently, this place hadn't been quite abandoned right away, even if Atrus found it saddening to come back. 

I checked into the Library, and found something a little more heartening: all the burnt Books had been rewritten! I was tempted to go exploring at once, and see all the wondrous, different Ages; but first things first, and the first thing was to find Atrus. I flipped through them, though, and admired the Ages through the Gateway Images: vast oceans, windswept deserts, towering forests, soaring mountains, tangled jungles, rainbow-crowned waterfalls, icy snowfields, grassy meadows, misty moors, and shining cities, among other things.

Beside the rewritten Books, there was also an ordinary little book, entitled, 'The Book of Terahnee'. I read it, of course. Terahnee, it seemed, was an Age inhabited by a people related to the D'ni. Atrus & Catherine discovered it, while searching the Ages for other survivors of D'ni's collapse. To cut a long story short, they found enough of these in various Ages to consider re-inhabiting the old city, and trained them in all the arts they knew, including Linking. 

When they found Terahnee, it looked like a beautiful place: a rich land of palatial houses, set in stunning artificial landscapes and inhabited by hospitable people; so hospitable, they even offered Atrus & Co. a place to live in their world. Atrus & Co. were about to accept, when they stumbled on an awful truth: the whole civilization, and everything in it, was built and operated by billions of slaves. Naturally, they didn't stay long after that; just long enough to free the slaves and establish a free society. Then back they came to our own Age, and locked the way to Terahnee behind them. Typical Atrus. 

Something else: the 'masters' in Terahnee lived in elegant palaces surrounded by immense open parklands, while the slaves lived and worked in tunnels, which ran under the entire country and through the hollow walls of all the buildings (rather like the service-entrances and maintenance-corridors in shopping-centers back home), and connected to the surface through shafts which looked like dry wells. This sounded familiar for some reason, and I turned it over in my head as I put down the booklet and walked the island again, until I remembered it was the same set-up speculated by the hero of H.G. Wells' 'Time Machine'. Almost exactly the same, in fact. I could almost imagine Terahnee (and didn't that mean Earthborn or New Earth in some languages?) as precisely the Age Wells' hero visited, though perhaps a few thousand years earlier, because the masters and slaves had not yet evolved, or rather devolved, into the two sub-species of Wells' story.

That reminded me of something else. The former slaves of Wells' story had turned the tables on their masters: they controlled the supply of everything the masters wanted, so the masters became helpless in their hands. When food ran short, the underground people even turned cannibal, and preyed on their former masters. The tables had turned, and the well-to-do were on the table. Could this be the fate of Terahnee, if Atrus & Co. hadn't intervened? Could it even happen now, if some counter-revolution were made among any who stayed behind, as soon as the D'ni's backs were turned? I decided to ask Atrus, when we met.

This little history also gave me a clue: in the epilogue, Catherine said (she seemed to have written most of the booklet), She and Atrus 'live quietly on Tomahna with our new daughter, Yeesha, cousin to Marrim's little Anna'. (Marrim was one of their disciples, and the father of her little Anna was a Terahnee abolitionist named Eedrah.) 

Well, that told me where Atrus and Catherine had gone, and where I could find them. I scanned all the books in the library, but there was nothing about any Tomahna in any of them. Now I had a choice: search the places of protection again, or go into the secret room, Link to D'ni, and pick up the trail there. I chose the latter. 

Luckily, the D'ni book was still where I'd left it. No Atrus in the Gateway Image, this time. No Atrus in the room beyond it, either. Everything else was as I remembered: stone walls on all sides, covered with writing; geometric patterns on the floor; Atrus' desk, with its lamp, in the corner. I had a look at that; it was almost bare, except for a Linking Book and a note. 

The note said, "Dear Friend: If you are reading this, you know we are no longer to be found on either D'ni or Myst. The enclosed Book is a link to the new Age where we live now in peace, free from the tragedies of the past. If you wish to see my work, use the Book and find me. [Signed] Atrus'.

So that was it. What else could I do? I opened the new Book, laid my hand on the Gateway Image, and linked away. 

When I could see again, I found myself gazing at jagged red-and-golden mountains over a rolling plain, or rather desert of the same colors. In the distance glistened something which might've been sky or sea; I wasn't sure which. Joshua-trees dotted the landscape. 

A voice behind me said: 'Breathtaking, isn't it?', and I turned to see Catherine, looking younger and happier than I'd ever seen her, with her 'new daughter Yeesha' swaddled in her arms. All around her rose hedges and small trees, higher than our heads, framing three ornate green-glass doors. Evidently the family's new headquarters was in an oasis, at the edge of a desert.

Catherine explained: 'We call it Tomahna. We moved here after Atrus finished writing Releeshahn. He wanted us to have a new home, too. I am so glad to see you. I told Atrus our paths would cross again. He was just going to grab something for your trip to Releeshahn, so he shouldn't be terribly long. Unless he decides to check over the whole house first, which means he could be hours resetting all his padlocks. But I know he was looking forward to introducing you to the D'ni, so he shouldn't be long. Why don't you wait in his study?', and sat on a bench nearby.

I went in; and my next adventure began.

I never got to ask Atrus about Terahnee and H.G. Wells' 'Time Machine'. Perhaps some future explorers will. But that's another story.


End file.
